also, I'm puzzled about the damage reports I read on CNN, apparently American cruise missiles killed 10 Iraqi, but how can they know that for sure if they can't send someone up there to do a body count?

also: media bias!
CNN says (summary by me):

Scud missile intercepted by Patriot missile!
oh yeah, and a couple of others hit dirt, nothing to worry about

Dutch news site Nu.nl says (again summary by me):

Six scud missiles were fired on Kuwait by Iraqi forces. 4 missiles hit the ground in the vicinity of the main command and logistic center of the American forces around Iraq.
Two missiles were intercepted by Patriot missiles.

not that that's anything to be surprised about.

other than that, I'll start caring about this war when things look to get really out of hand. I don't see that happening yet, as there's been a minimal response to the first US attacks.

Yo mama's so fat, all the restaurants in town have signs that says: "Maximum Occupancy: 240 Patrons OR Yo Mama"

I thought it was interesting last night. When the missiles started Dan Rather came on, after a minute or two he cut to a guy stationed with some soldiers, but before letting him talk he said to us "keep in mind that everything so-and-so says is okayed by the U.S. military".

It was just nice of them to tell us stuff was being censored, I wish all news sources did that.

He and his girlfriend are making out in his car in a trailer park, when he suddenly has to run to an outhouse to make an emergency, uh... deposit.

You know, the patriot missile system gets a lot of unfair guff in my book. Sure, it isn't 100 percent effective, but c'mon:

1) there isn't anything else out there that intercepts ANY missiles, period.
2) This is first generation tech, so the fact that it hits anything is pretty cool, actually
3) this isn't quite the same system in place 12 years ago - it SHOULD be a bit more effective - we'll know AFTER the war.
4) I'd like one at my house, to intercept trick or treaters and the occasional Jesuit.

I agree with Warren in this case. These reporters are traveling with military units, they're on military bases, this stuff is being broadcast live, watching what you show or say is important. DO I think the military attempts to control the flow of information so as to minimize negatives? Yes, of course. But in some cases we have to bow to practicality. High quality information and useful analysis isn't going to be happening in real time, and there's simply going to be stuff going on we won't know, we can't know right now. It's a war, and shockingly, the government has the right and the responsibility to keep certain secrets from the people, at least temporarily.

I watched a special a couple of months ago, Dateline or something, on the Patriot - The Israelis have a countermeasure system that is 90% effective and the stories the news told you about the Patriot during Desert Storm were wrong. Someone in the military is driving the Patriot bus even though it is only 10% effective. Israeli sentiment was "Uh, yeah, thanks, keep your Patriots..."

The second look was even less flattering to the Patriot missile system that the U.S. deployed to shoot down the Iraqi Scuds. In February 1991, then-President Bush claimed the Patriots had downed 41 of 42 Scud missiles fired during the war.

But an exhaustive study by Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, later found no evidence that a Patriot had disabled the warhead on any Scud missile. "There were three cases where damage was done to the airframe of Scuds, but in all three cases the warheads went on undamaged," said Postol. "So basically there are no cases that we studied--and we had three-quarters of the engagements on film--where we saw evidence of a destruction of the Scud warhead."

Later, William S. Cohen, the Defense secretary under President Clinton, acknowledged that the Gulf War-era Patriot missile "didn't work."

Weapon technology has improved drastically since we were last in the theater. I don't see what the point is in talking about the failures of the Patriot now. We already knocked down one SCUD with a Patriot in this war. (Oh, Saddam doesn't have SCUDs, whoops..)

"And I'm saying without a relationship with God and those strong convictions HE put in me I wouldn't be a 42 year old who hasn't had sex with anyone today."

I am being told by several senior officials not to take that taped speech Saddam gave last night as proof that he survived the attack," CBS NEWS reporter David Martin said on air.

"They say the evidence that put him in the bunker last night was very reliable, and they are confident that the cruise missiles and bunker-busting bombs that were fired at that bunker last night hit the target. So now, intelligence experts are studying the tape to determine if it is really Saddam, or a body double which he is known to use from time to time. And they are running a computerized voice analysis, comparing that speech with known recordings of Saddam's voice. But that's a process that takes awhile. So we may not have a quick answer."

CBS adds that there is "is considerable belief in this government that they may, in fact, have gotten Saddam."

"..and Trolly McTroll is the best name EVER. I laugh every time I see it." - Wudi

But I've got to say, complaining about news 'censorship' is pretty fucking stupid. The journalist, if left unchecked, could very possibly try to 'scoop' his or her peers by using inside information overheard while living with the troops. The journalist would do it for ratings but the result could easily be a nice lat/lon pair for the enemy to use in placing a missile right in the middle of a group of our soldiers. And though I'm against the war, I am absolutely not in favor of having lots of american soldiers die to prove my side of the argument.

In a time of war there absolutely should be a degree of temporary censorship, at least while the actions are in progress. If the military tries to censor journalists who were over there once the war is no longer hot... sure complain then, but not now, or you look like some kind of fucking shithead...all IMO of course.

So if it turns out that Saddam isn't using some elaborate 70's spy movie system of Syntha-Saddams, and we can verify that we "got 'em" at some point, will the war end then? Since the whole point of the war is to remove Saddam from power, and he was even offered exile as a way to prevent the war, surely after we clearly establish that we "got 'em" - that'll be that. Right?

Oddly enough, I remember some conspiracy-fringe guys yammering about how Osama bin Laden might be using body doubles....of course, they were mocked and told to put on their tinfoil hats because it was such a ludicrously silly idea. How things change....

Well, it depends what happens, of course. The US has long been going on the theory that the people want Saddam out and once he and his top people are gone, they will rise up and welcome the American occupation. If they are right, then things would go pretty smoothly from here on out..there would, of course, still be lots of minor cleanup operations to take out disjointed army units loyal to Saddam, etc.. If they are wrong, then things will get..interesting.

Oddly enough, I remember some conspiracy-fringe guys yammering about how Osama bin Laden might be using body doubles....of course, they were mocked and told to put on their tinfoil hats because it was such a ludicrously silly idea. How things change....

The US has long been going on the theory that the people want Saddam out and once he and his top people are gone, they will rise up and welcome the American occupation.

There was an Irish-naturalised Iraqi woman interviewed on RTE this afternoon who made no bones about her detest for Saddam Hussein and his cronies. But when the presenter read a transcript of the speech that Col. Tim Collins made to the men under his command this morning (my Google-fu only turned up this Daily Mirror link - sorry), she got very upset and angry at what she sees as the arrogance of the West.

if you could just see the beauty
there's things i could never describe

Even the 18-year olds whose sole job on a aircraft carrier is to restock the soft drink vending machines?

is that what the 18-year olds were trained to do when they went through boot camp? they may be loading vending machines with cans of 7-Up now, but they could just as easily be loading shells into those big-ass guns.